Sleeping With the Opposition
by krakens
Summary: Laurel and Gareth are really, really bad at the whole secret relationship thing.
1. Idle Hands, etc, etc

It's 6:26 in the morning, Laurel's still half-asleep, and her brother is calling her.

She answers the phone by reflex, but her voice is still bleary as she speaks. "Hello?"

"Laurel," Luke says. "Where _are_ you?"

She's awake and sitting up in a heartbeat, because the answer to that question is _funny story, I'm actually in Gareth Ritter's apartment_. Before she has a chance to blurt anything incriminating out, though, Luke continues.

"You're late," he says.

Oh — right. She was supposed to come into the office early today. It's an objectively good thing that the government has reopened, she knows, but her headaches-per-day ratio has been on a severe upward trend since the deal was made three months ago. She runs a hand through her hair, trying to steady her heart rate before speaking.

"Yeah, I know, I know," she says.

"Where are you?" he asks again.

"I'll be there in, like, twenty minutes. I promise," she says.

"You better be, or you might as well just stay home for the day," he says by way of valediction, and the line goes dead.

"Brat," she mutters to her phone screen, dropping it on the bedspread and burying her face in her hands. Twenty minutes is the amount of time it takes her to make it to work from her apartment. The Gareth's Apartment-Home-Work commute, which she has become intimately familiar with, takes something more like forty-five minutes on a good day.

In the bathroom, Gareth resumes blow-drying his hair, apparently having had the foresight to stop when her brother called.

Laurel fishes her shirt off the floor, pulls it on, and throws the covers back before padding across the bedroom to join him. He wakes up way before she does on the regular, and she can sleep like a log through his morning routine (witnessing the amount of effort he puts into getting his hair to look like that really should've been the straw that broke the camel's back, and she figures the fact that she's still somehow attracted to him means she's more or less hopeless). She thwacks him on the back of the head as she comes in.

"Ow," he deadpans.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" she asks, even though it's definitely not his fault.

"I've literally never seen you awake before seven," he says as she turns the shower on and sticks her head into the still-cold stream of water. At her blubbering, indignant gasp, he turns the hair dryer off and sets it down. "What are you doing?" he asks.

"Trying to make it look like I had time to shower," she says, wrenching the water off again and grabbing a towel to dry her hair. "Which I don't, because I have to be at work in nineteen minutes."

"Calm down," he says.

"I gotta go," she says, doubling back into the bedroom. Gareth's apartment is sleek and smartly decorated, but approximately the size of a shoe box, so she hardly has to raise her voice to continue the conversation. "I have to go home to get new clothes, or maybe buy something on my way there, and that's gonna take—"

"No, you don't," he interrupts.

"Yes, I do," she says, shaking the blankets out and grabbing her phone. "I can't wear what I wore yesterday. There's only one reason why anyone ever does that."

"You left a dress here a few weeks ago," he says. She pauses her frenetic search. "I had it cleaned. It's in the closet."

Sure enough, one of her work dresses is hanging in his closet, still in the dry-cleaning bag. It's the pinstripe blue one — not her favorite, so its unnoted absence from her own wardrobe is no surprise, but it's better than nothing.

"Were you going to give this back to me?" she asks as she pulls the zipper up. "Or do you lay it out next to you on the sofa when I'm not here?"

He sticks his head out of the bathroom to look her in the eye as he speaks. "You're welcome," he chides, and disappears into the bathroom again. She grabs her purse from the living room and doubles back to the bathroom to make an attempt at fixing her makeup with what's available to her. She has to nudge him aside to make room for herself at the mirror and he rolls his eyes.

"You could leave things here, you know, on purpose," he offers. "If you want to."

She narrows her eyes and focuses very intently on finding the eyeliner she's about fifty percent sure is in this bag somewhere. The _stuff_ discussion isn't one she wants to have right now, or maybe ever. Their whole relationship is based on a very carefully constructed equilibrium, after all, and the slightest change could disrupt it. In her head, leaving stuff around means _serious_ , and serious isn't a word she'd ascribe to an arrangement that they're banking on nobody discovering, ever. (Then again, she'd fallen asleep in the middle of an episode of Game of Thrones last weekend, and he'd carried her to bed without waking her, and then she'd left in the morning without actually having slept with him at all, and none of _that_ really screams "casual sex" either.)

"You're here most nights anyway," he adds, and she wrenches the cap off the eyeliner with a little too much force.

"Sure, whatever," she says, and he leaves her alone in the bathroom to do her makeup.

When she comes back out, he's put her clothes into the laundry hamper. She wraps her fingers tighter around the strap of her purse reflexively.

"I've gotta go," she says again. "Where are my shoes?"

"Kitchen," he says. "Hey, wait."

He catches her by the elbow as she tries to leave and pecks her on the lips, a gesture so brief and chaste it's barely even a kiss. Still, she feels some of her anxiety and resentment dissolve away, and she hates him for it. Just a little bit.

"I'll see you later?" he asks.

"We work in the same place, so that seems likely," she says, and he laughs.

"Bye," he says.

"Bye," she echoes, already halfway out the door.

* * *

Laurel gets to work a little under an hour late, and Scarlett's waiting for her when she gets there, like she has nothing better to do.

She's somehow remained employed in the office, despite the sex scandal and the fact that she's probably literally missing half her brain. Until Laurel comes up with a way to confirm short of forcing her into a CAT scan, though, she'll have to put up with her.

"You wore those shoes yesterday," is the first thing out of Scarlett's mouth (the bugs got the half of her brain that previously prevented her from being a weirdo creep, apparently).

"They're comfortable," Laurel says.

"Uh-huh," she chirps. "Well, you missed the staff meeting." (She's started walking, and Laurel has to rush to keep up.) "Your brother wants to talk to you, and after that—"

"Constituent casework, got it," she says, waving Scarlett off as she approaches her brother's office.

Scarlett gives her a cold, appraising once-over as they stop in front of the door. "Vertical stripes aren't flattering to your figure," she says before turning on her heel and returning to the front office.

So creepy.

Luke is hard at work in his office, which is thankfully flower-free for once. He glances up at her as she comes in. "Glad you turned up," he says.

"I'm really sorry, Luke," she says, sliding into the chair across from his desk. "I slept through my alarm, and—"

"That's the best excuse you can come up with? Really?"

"It's what happened, so," she says, glancing down at her nails.

"Look, I just need to know you're taking this seriously. I know you're going home in two months, but this is a really critical time of year for us, and—what?"

"What, what?" she asks, genuinely baffled by the change of topic.

"You got uncomfortable when I said that you're going home in two months," he says. She doesn't think she did, unless looking out a window counts as being uncomfortable, but she bites her tongue. "You are going to stay, aren't you? Come on, you can't bail on me now."

"Of course I'm going to stay," she snaps back. "I need the money. I just… didn't realize how long it's been already."

Luke flips over into big brother mode _immediately_ , and the change in timbre is palpable. "Aww," he says. "You like it here."

"I do not like it here," she says reflexively.

"You like it here and you don't want to leave."

"Oh my God, shut up," she says, standing up. She doesn't want to stay in DC. She has things to do in LA, and also the last four months have been a surreal nightmare. At least in Hollywood everyone is stupid, self-obsessed, and into fad diets already. She might never have noticed the bug invasion in the first place and she could've remained blissfully unaware.

"I can find you a permanent job on my staff, if you want," Luke offers as she's halfway out the door. She makes a rude gesture in response.

* * *

Luckily for her, she's vaulted straight into a long day's worth of constituent complaints, which is like an eight hour power point presentation of compelling arguments for leaving the city as soon as possible.

She's between cases and idly researching someone's unreasonable request on her laptop when she glances over at her phone. Most days she only texts Gareth to tell him whether or not she's coming over that night; texting is vaguely akin to stuff in her mind. It starts small and creeps into full-blown codependence, which she's not about. But right now she's bored and she's got an opener that's ostensibly work-related, and she unlocks her phone screen and taps out a message.

 _What would someone have to do to change Maryland's state motto?_ she types.

 _Constituent?_ he texts back almost immediately. She responds in the affirmative. _What do they want to change it to?_

" _The Birthplace of Michael Phelps"._ She's disappointed that she can't fully convey how earnest and enthusiastic this guy was about Michael Phelps in text.

 _Now there's something our offices can really agree to collaborate on_ , he replies. She rolls her eyes. As she's trying to think of something suitably witty to say in response, there's a ruckus from the front office, and the conversation gets left by the wayside as she goes to investigate.

Luke has gathered the staff and is partway through explaining the cause for all the excitement: the Republicans have agreed to allow a vote on some topic or other. She missed the set up, but she's not sure it matters in the long run anyway, because—

"It's not like it's going to pass," an intern says. "They still have the majority."

"Yes, but they've been alienating moderates for months. Figure out who else is tired of Wheatus and this is our chance to flip the tables," Luke says. "You know, back to their original position."

"Full three-sixty," Laurel comments dryly from the back of the room.

"Laurel! Good, you're here. You're still in contact with Wheatus's Chief of Staff, right?" Luke asks.

Her first, totally irrational response is: oh my God, he knows. But of course that's stupid; he's just canvassing for useful connections, and if he really did think something was up, he wouldn't have mentioned it in front of the entire office. There's nothing incriminating about the question whatsoever. In fact, it's so normal that the longer she doesn't string together a coherent answer, the weirder it'll seem to everyone else.

Say something, idiot, her brain thinks at her. "Uhhh," she says, twisting a strand of hair around her fingers. "Yeah. Why?"

Stupid.

"Can you go talk to him?" Luke prompts, clearly suspicious.

"Sure," she says, too quickly. "Yeah, of course."

The staff meeting proceeds as usual, but Luke follows her into her office afterwards.

"Can I help you?" she asks, shutting her laptop as he crosses the room to her desk.

"Are you good to talk to Ritter?" he asks, apropos of nothing.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asks.

"I know you guys had a thing," Luke says.

"We did not," she says. "Have a thing."

"I thought you went out with him," Luke says.

"Yeah," she says, picking her phone up and clutching it between her hands as she speaks. "Like, twice. Once because _you told me to_ , and the other time to piss off Dad. And it worked, by the way," she says.

"Yeah," he laughs, taking a moment to savor the memory. "Well, if it's going to be awkward for you, I can send someone else."

"It's not going to be awkward," she says. Her phone buzzes in her hand. She presses it to her chest surreptitiously.

"Okay," Luke says, seemingly ready to go.

"Okay," she smiles back.

Once he's gone, she checks her phone. Gareth's forwarded her an opinion piece from a feminist blog that protests the current Maryland state motto as being sexist. He likes to bait her into arguments; it's one of his favorite pastimes. She should really know better than to take the bait, but she hadn't actually known the official state motto before, and the blogger has a point, and before she know it she's composing a response.

* * *

She puts off actually going to talk to him for another few hours, and by the time she can't put it off any more it's somehow still only half past noon. This is why she never comes into work early.

The walk up to Gareth's office is route to her by this point, and the first inkling she has that something's different is when she notices that the hallway outside is eerily silent. When she pushes the door open, the front office is totally empty.

Warily, she makes her way to Gareth's office. He's there; hunched over his computer and over-focused, as evidenced by the worry lines on his brow. He hears her come in, though, and smiles when he sees her. This isn't just a private occurrence; it happens every time he sees her, maybe involuntarily, and it's not discreet. Secretly, she's kind of tickled by it.

"Hey," he says.

"Where is everyone?" she asks, gesturing back to the front office.

"Red took them out to lunch," he says.

"You didn't go with them?"

"Uh, no," he says, closing his laptop and leaning back in his chair. "They went to some kind of raw food vegan juice bar."

"Juice Forever," she says with a solemn nod.

"Oh, you've read the book?" he quips.

"You know, it's been on my to-do list," she says, approaching his desk. "So… nobody's here?" she asks, gesturing to Red's office.

"Nope," he says, folding his hands in front of him. She sidles around the desk, putting herself between him and his computer. "What are you doing?" he asks, although he doesn't seem opposed to it.

"Luke sent me up here to seduce you for information," she says.

"No, he didn't," Gareth counters.

"No, he didn't," she agrees. "But nobody's here, so I thought I'd give a shot."

She sits down on his lap, and when he laughs she feels his breath against her neck. When she lays her hand on his chest, his hand finds her waist to keep her from losing her balance.

"Come on. The door's open," he says, which is maybe the least convincing argument she's ever heard come out of his mouth.

"Mhmm," she hums in agreement before closing the small distance between them. As they kiss, his other hand slides up her thigh, momentarily halted by the hem of her dress—and she's at real risk of letting herself get carried away, here, so she breaks away for air.

"Did you actually come up here for information?" he asks.

"Mood killer," she comments, although that might've been the point. "And yes, but it doesn't matter. I'll just tell him I gave it the old college try and you wouldn't say anything and he'll move on."

"What did you want to know?" he asks. He's still playing with the hem of her skirt, and she can't help but feel like this whole seduction script is getting flipped on her.

"I'm not going to tell you," she says. "Because you're not going to tell me, so I'll just be giving you information by asking."

"How do you know I'm not going to tell you anything?" he asks.

"Shut up," she says, and kisses him again.

They make it approximately half as long as they did the first time before he pulls away from her.

"Langdon," he says.

"What?"

"The moderate," he says. She sighs, and moves his hand off her leg, because she's not going to talk about crusty old Republican senators with his hand up her skirt.

"I didn't ask," she says.

"You didn't have to," he says. "And Langdon's going to flip no matter what you do, so there's no harm in telling you."

"You couldn't just let me believe that using my body actually worked?" she says.

"It was a point in your favor," he says, clearly distracted.

They don't get a chance to go at it again, though, because the front door of the office slams. Laurel just about jumps off his lap, which sends his desk chair rolling into the wall with a loud thud. She's tugging her skirt down and he's opening his laptop when his assistant wanders into the room.

"So you can just email me that, uhm, proposal," Laurel says, trying to sound like they've been talking.

"Yeah, I'll do that," he agrees without looking up from his laptop screen.

His assistant looks a little bewildered, and Laurel takes the opportunity to bail before she can ask any questions. On her way out, she can just hear the assistant ask "What proposal?". She doesn't get the chance to hear Gareth try to save face because she's out the door, but she's sure whatever he says won't be super convincing.

* * *

"It's Langdon," Laurel relays to Luke as soon as she gets back to his office.

"He told you that?" Luke asks.

"Yup," Laurel says, turning her phone over in her hands as she hovers by the doorway.

"How'd you get him to tell you?"

"I'm wily," Laurel deadpans.

"I don't trust it," Luke says.

"Then why'd you send me up there in the first place?" she asks.

"If he's trying to feed us bad information, that can be useful too, right?"

"I don't think it's bad information," she says. "He said it's inevitable, so it didn't matter if he told me or not."

"And you trust him?" Luke asks, a clearly rhetorical question. She tries not to let her response get stuck in her throat.

"No," she ekes out in three syllables.

"No," Luke agrees. "No, if he wants us to talk to Langdon, we should talk to someone else. Someone like… O'Shea," he concludes.

"What am I even doing here?" she ponders to the empty air. Luke kisses her head as he passes her on his way out.

* * *

But, of course, O'Shea and Langdon are not good friends, and her brother's attempts at deal-making somehow manage to offend both of them, and the whole thing snowballs into a nonsensical stalemate of nothingness. They're probably lucky the government didn't implode, again.

"How is that _my_ fault?" Gareth says in response to her complaints as he shuffles the contents of his fridge around to make room for the leftovers from their take-out dinner.

"I don't know. But it is, somehow," she replies, flopping down on his sofa. She's been here three nights in a row now, and she's doubly out of clothes. She's going to have to get up early again tomorrow to go home, she notes bitterly.

"Did you know," he says, and she moves her feet out of the way so he can sit down. Once he's seated she puts her feet on his leg. "That competitive rock-paper-scissors players have to get, like, seventeen steps ahead of each other?"

"There's no such thing as competitive rock-paper-scissors," she scoffs.

He raises his eyebrows. "You'd be surprised."

"I don't blame Luke for being a step behind you, anyway," she says. "He doesn't have all the facts. I tried to warn him, but he was just like, why should we trust this guy? Which is fair."

"You could've told him we're seeing each other," he says, and she is suddenly very aware of the tactile sensation of his hand curled loosely around her ankle. "All this sneaking around is going to get us in trouble eventually."

"You know what's a hundred percent guaranteed to get us in way more trouble immediately? Telling people," she says.

"He's your brother, he's not going to rat us out," he says.

"Come on," she says. "You don't actually want me to tell my brother."

He's silent for a long moment, but she is absolutely determined to call his bluff. "You're right," he says at length, squeezing her ankle.

"Ha," she responds. "You have to be careful or someday you're going to think I'm ten steps ahead when I'm actually only at nine."

"Yeah," he agrees. "That would definitely be bad."


	2. The Case for Bipartisan Cooperation

Luke's approval ratings are rock-bottom, and that means gratuitous schmoozing.

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately, depending on how she looks at it), Red's approval ratings aren't much better, and the general consensus on the cause for the nosedive seems to be a lack of bipartisanship. "You _know_ it's gotten bad when the only thing voters agree on is that we can't agree on anything," Gareth had said the other night. They'd been at her place for once, him sitting cross-legged against her headboard tapping away at his laptop keyboard, her rooting around her closet looking for a formal dress. "I like the green one," he'd added absently, indicating a garment she'd already discarded.

She curls her fingers into the jade chiffon of her skirt as she adjusts for the ninetieth time this evening ( _now_ she remembers why she never wears it). They're at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, which wouldn't have been her first choice for a fancy party, but the guests seem to be enjoying themselves.

Red is here too – this event is technically co-sponsored – but he and Luke haven't said so much as a word to each other all evening. Every now and then she's caught sight of Gareth from across the murkily lit room, but she's been mostly glued to Luke's side and him to Red's, so they haven't had a chance to exchange words.

She's entering her tenth straight minute of listening to Luke and her father volley banter with some old family friends she's never met before, and her attention has drifted to the nearby fish tank. She's so bored that she's partway through trying to count a school of tiny fish the size of her pinky finger when her phone buzzes in her clutch.

It's a text from Gareth. _Can I buy you a drink?_ he says.

The bar is a level below from where she is and she wanders towards the railing so she can glance down. Though her view is partially obscured by a cloud of giant plastic jellyfish, she has a good sightline on the bar, and she sees him there. She manages to catch his eye with a small wave, and he lifts his glass towards her in a toasting gesture.

 _Definitely_ , she texts him. _How's your dead drop?_

 _I'll leave it on the trashcan with the turtles on it_ ,he suggests.

Very romantic, she nearly texts back, but restrains herself.

"That better not be work-related, Laurel," her father calls from over by the fish tank.

"It's not," she calls back, which is not technically a lie.

 _I hope you're serious_ , she texts. _I could use a drink._

 _Not enjoying the family time?_

 _Have you met my family?_

"Laurel, for God's sake," her father yells, joining her at the railing. "Come say hello to Mrs. Johansson," he continues at his high volume before dropping his voice and leaning in and whispering. "I told her you've been out in Hollywood and she's an absolute sucker for name-dropping, so if you could just…"

"What?" she prompts, absolutely dead-set against becoming acclimatized to her father's dubious ethics.

"I don't know, tell her Morgan Freeman is narrating your next movie," he says. "Say whatever you _want_ , Laurel. Your brother has her on the hook."

"Fish joke. Very funny," Laurel says, looking down at Gareth again. She rolls her eyes; he smirks as he takes another sip of his drink.

"Come _on_ , Laurel," he says, clapping her on the shoulder and returning to the small group of admirers Luke has enraptured with whatever over-exaggerated story he's telling.

 _Please tell me that drink is coming_ , she texts.

A handful of minutes later, while she's telling the Johanssons a (true) story about a conversation she had with Orlando von Einsiedel that's failing to impress, a waiter arrives.

"Excuse me, miss?" he says.

"Yes?" she says.

"This is for you," he says, handing her an old fashioned.

"Compliments of…?" Luke prompts, and Laurel knocks back the drink before she has to deal with the fallout of this.

"He didn't say," the waiter says.

"Ah, a secret admirer," Luke says. "You always do better at parties than I do." (Laurel doesn't think Luke should be joking about scoring dates when his wife still refuses to appear in public with him. It's easy to write this off on the recent birth of their child, an adorable chubby-faced boy Germaine named Graham, but that's not the reason she's not here and they both know it.)

"That's your drink, Laurel," her father comments.

"So it is," she says, appraising the glass. "Do you think I should send my number back? We might be soulmates."

"I think he's probably dad's age," Luke ribs.

Everyone laughs politely; the Johanssons take the opportunity to excuse themselves, presumably so they don't have to hear the back half of Laurel's boring story about documentarian shindigs.

"Laurel," her father says in a long suffering tone after they're gone. "The next time you start a sentence _I was talking to my friend Orlando_ , the next word out of your mouth better be _Bloom_."

"I've never met Orlando Bloom," she says.

"Nobody knew what you were talking about," Luke agrees.

"I was talking about the work I _actually_ do," Laurel says. "Which is my passion in life, remember? Besides, it's not like he's a nobody. His documentary was nominated for an Academy Award."

"Did he win?" her father asks.

"No," she says, downing the rest of the drink. "The Edward Snowden thing won."

"Okay, well, next time you have to talk about documentaries, we can compromise for that."

"Actually, hold on," Luke interrupts. "That could be inflammatory. What was the stance? Pro-Snowden?"

"I don't want to spoil it for you," she deadpans.

Thankfully, at this moment, more guests approach their group and strike up a conversation with her brother; she returns her attention to her phone.

 _Thanks_ , she texts.

 _Check your six_ , he texts back in lieu of a response.

She glances over her shoulder. He's lurking by an offshooting hallway that leads somewhere not part of the official party. He jerks his head in that direction and heads off.

"I have to go to the bathroom," she announces, handing her empty glass to her father.

* * *

She finds him loitering near an out-of-bounds exhibit, mercifully away from the noise and prying eyes of the partygoers.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" she asks as she approaches him.

"Probably not," he says very frankly. "I'm from out of town."

"That's funny," she says, smoothing down the lapels of his suit jacket. "I could've sworn I recognized you."

He doesn't have any quick comeback to that, and instead just makes a low humming noise in his throat. "This dress looks good on you," he murmurs.

"It's super uncomfortable," she says as he picks up a fold of her skirt. The slit runs nearly all the way up her thigh and his tampering exposes a sliver of skin.

"That's too bad," he says, his thumb grazing her bare leg. "Because it looks good on you."

"Hey, watch it," she says, shooing his hand away.

"Who's going to tell on us?" he asks. "The fish?"

She turns around to look at the tank; he wraps his arms around her waist and rests his chin on her shoulder as they observe the fish.

"I don't know. This guy looks a little sketchy," she says, pointing at a particularly haggard looking creature that does appear to be spying on them.

"He looks like Don Corleone," Gareth says. And then continues, in a fairly accurate Brando impression: "It's a Sicillian message."

"Oh my god. Stop," Laurel groans, which is her canned reaction for any kind of accent he does.

"It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes," he goes on, despite her protests.

"Why are you like this?" she asks.

He chuckles into her shoulder, which is bare from the cut of her gown. She lets him linger for a moment before she shakes him off. Too many people nearby, and they're too exposed.

"We should probably get back to the party," he says with the cadence of a hopeful question.

"Yes," she agrees seriously.

"Where we can't be seen together, for any number of reasons," he continues.

"That is correct," she says.

"Which is a shame," he says.

"My dad's here," she reminds him, because she feels like he needs reminding.

"Right," he says, not sounding particularly dissuaded. "You know where your dad definitely isn't? The room I have booked at the Four Seasons."

"We're staying at my mom's house," Laurel says apologetically. "They'll notice if I'm missing all night."

He clucks his tongue, but before he comes up with a jailbreak suggestion, they're interrupted.

By her father.

Because, of course.

"Laurel!" he calls from down the hallway.

"Oh, Jesus," she mutters under her breath. Gareth has thankfully shuffled a precautionary step or two away from her by the time her father and Luke approach them. "Hi, Dad. You remember Gareth."

"I do," her father confirms. (Their last encounter had not been altogether pleasant, from the accounts Laurel heard, and for a second she almost feels bad for Gareth. Nobody should have to endure her father's passive aggression if they're not related to him.)

"Good to see you again, sir," Gareth says, extending a hand. Her father takes it.

"You're still working for Red?" her father asks.

"I am," Gareth confirms. "I was actually just bothering Laurel with work."

"Anything I can help with?" Luke asks.

"I think we've got it covered, actually," Gareth responds before Laurel can open her mouth. She nods in agreement, glancing down at her phone reflexively to avoid any awkward eye contact. This is her personal version of hell. She's in hell.

"You should probably get back to the party," Laurel says, kind of in Gareth's direction even though she's not really looking at him.

"I'm not in any rush," Gareth says.

"Yeah, no rush," Luke says, and Laurel could punch him for the smirk he's wearing.

Gareth, Luke, and her father continue to converse for what is in Laurel's professional opinion _far too long_. She doesn't really contribute to the discussion any more than she did any of the others she's been party to this evening.

Once it's evident that they're at no real risk of being _discovered_ , the conversation becomes intolerable to her for a different reason. Just like her father seems to have no genuine interest in her passions, she can't hide her disdain for politics, whether or not she has a knack for it. Gareth seems to be enjoying himself, though, in his way; where she would just roll her eyes, scoff, and move on, her father is happy to engage him over the downfalls and merits of Reaganomics. Even Luke has his two cents to toss in. Laurel just grits her teeth and waits for it all to be over.

Gareth does eventually excuse himself. Luke very mercifully waits until he's out of earshot to speak again.

"I can't believe you like him," he says, turning his attention back to her.

"I don't like him," she grits out, but really, it's such a mild accusation that she should be thankful. They start to shuffle back down the hallway, and just when Laurel thinks she's gotten away scot-free her father continues.

"You should keep your eye on that one," her father says to Luke, catching him by the shoulder as they turn to walk back towards the party proper. "He's sharp."

"Yeah," Luke agrees, embroiled in his own private train of thought. "Yeah, I will."

* * *

Laurel doesn't sleep well that night. The Baltimore house is a place full of ghosts. Her bedroom here hasn't been redecorated since the family moved to DC when she was thirteen, and as she stares at the shadows of tree branches on the ceiling, she can almost imagine she's a child again.

Breakfast the next morning doesn't help. Her father makes them French toast, an endeavor he used to undertake regularly four times a year: Easter, Luke's birthday, her birthday, Christmas. He's not a very good cook, and the toast is soggy, just like she remembers it always being.

Worst of all, her father and mother are disgustingly civil towards one another, consider the ugly circumstances of their divorce. Laurel can't stomach the tepid pleasantries when she's hardly forgiven her father herself. She and Luke had been livid when they found out; their mother had just gone through the motions. For some reason, that always made everything sting just a little more, for Laurel.

The four of them eat in silence, each on their own side of the table. As their silverware clanks against the nice china, Laurel has an errant realization that settles under her skin like a burr: she'd so much rather be with Gareth in his hotel room than here.

* * *

She and Luke stay in Baltimore for two days to spend time with their mother, and for once in her life returning to DC is like a breath of fresh air. Even though it's Sunday evening and she has to be at work in the morning, she only stops at her own apartment long enough to drop off her suitcase before she heads to Gareth's.

If his favorite pastime is arguing, hers is complaining. And even though he very admirably manages to distract her for a few hours, she has a lot to complain about.

They're lying in his bed, still half-tangled up in the bedsheets, when he interrupts a particularly long tear of hers with an absent and seemingly accidental chuckle.

"What?" she presses, rolling onto her side to face him.

"Nothing," he says, but he's still smiling. "Go on."

She narrows her eyes, but he gestures that she should actually continue, and so she does. She's been listing her father's transgressions over the weekend, to a point. She doesn't mention any of the divorce stuff – she doesn't like talking about it – and that leaves mostly his snide remarks about her job.

"Anyway. I wouldn't feel half as cheap taking the money from my dad if I felt like he actually _cared_ about my work, but he doesn't. It's all a bargaining chip to him," she says.

"If you get the money in the end, does it really matter where it came from?" he asks.

"It does to me," she says. "But that's all moot, because I'm not going to get the money."

"He reneged?" Gareth asks, and she hates how genuinely surprised he sounds. He shouldn't have any opinions on her father's moral fiber, let alone positive ones.

"No," she says. "The deal's on. But the deal was for half the money. The other half was supposed to come from the crowdfunding campaign, which currently has…" She swipes her phone off the bedside table and refreshes the page, which was already open. "A little over three thousand dollars pledged and only seven weeks left."

"You don't think he'd give you the rest of the money if you asked?"

"Oh, he would," Laurel says. "But it'd cost me another six months."

Gareth doesn't really respond to that; he makes an indiscriminate sound from the back of his throat that could mean just about anything.

"That's not the point, anyway," she sighs, setting her phone down again.

"What's the point?"

"The point is that nobody _cares_. Three thousand dollars in four months is pathetic," she says. "And a quarter of that is from people I'm sleeping with."

"People?" he grouses under his breath.

"You know what I mean," she says, rolling her eyes. "You only gave me that money because you were trying to get in my pants."

"That's not why I gave you the money," he says, with only a tinge of faux-indignation.

"Then what am I doing here?" she ponders. She makes as if she's going to roll out of bed, but he pulls her back and drags her closer to him than she'd been before, so her back's to his chest and his arm weighs her in place.

"I _like_ your documentaries," he says once she stops squirming. "And I'd like to see a finished one, someday."

"Well, you're… biased," she settles on after a second of contemplation.

"Probably," he agrees. "But I also like to think I know what I'm talking about." (She could've told him that.) "The first time I asked you what it was about, you said 'religious music that's disappearing'. But I watched a documentary about people trying to hold on to something they don't want to lose. That's what's compelling. You know how to talk to people, and how to tell a good story. And you care _way_ too much. It shows."

"Thanks," she says after contemplating his words for a second. "That's actually… really nice."

"I give good compliment," he says, rolling over so he can turn out the light.

They settle in the dark, far enough apart that they're not touching but close enough together that she can still feel the heat of his bare skin.

"The ten cents was me trying to get in your pants," he says just as the silence that's settled over them becomes comfortable and sleepy.

"Shut up," she says, and pulls the comforter up to her chin.

* * *

Since last week's debacle, Laurel's been careful to come into work on the dot. She doesn't need to draw too much attention to herself.

Today, she's fifteen minutes early and she already has her coffee. This doesn't escape Luke's notice.

"You're here," he says, following her into her office. She drops her bag on her desk and leans against it instead of sitting down, a defensive move. She doesn't need him settling in for the day to bug her.

"In show business, they say if you're on time, you're late," she says.

"Then I should fire you for always being late," he says. "You're annoyingly punctual."

"I was actually voted most annoyingly punctual in high school," she says, taking a sip of her caramel macchiato (Luke takes his coffee black and makes fun of her for her trendy Los Angeles tastes, but she can't kick the habit). "What were you voted, again? Smarmiest haircut?"

"Can I ask a huge favor?" Luke asks by way of response.

"You can ask, but I'll need to hear what it is before I give you a solid yes," she says.

"Do you think you can get Gareth Ritter to ask you out again?" Luke asks.

"Uhm," Laurel says.

"Because I was thinking, it might actually be a genius PR move. Everyone thinks we hate each other, relations are bad, the offices don't talk. It'll be some light and breezy gossip about us, for once. And everyone loves a good Romeo and Juliet story."

"It would be good publicity," Laurel repeats slowly, just so she's sure she understands what he's saying. "If I went out with Gareth?"

"I know, I know," Luke says. "Take one for the team?"

Laurel gets _thisclose_ to just telling him. The secondhand embarrassment factor is mounting rapidly, and he's never going to give her a better opening. But something in her stubborn, crazy brain refuses to let her concede. In fact, the whole situation has sent a tingle of adrenaline down her spine. It's ridiculous, but maybe, just _maybe_ she can get away with it, and wouldn't that be the con of the century?

"I'll see what I can do," she says.

* * *

She doesn't want to put the conversation off, and it doesn't feel like one appropriately had over text messages, so she takes the remaining ten minutes she has before her day officially starts to track Gareth down. This isn't altogether too difficult; there's a coffee cart in the rotunda where she knows he'll be.

But he's not expecting _her_ , of course, and is so engrossed in his newspaper that he doesn't see her approaching.

"Hey," she says, sliding into the chair opposite his. He looks up slowly, setting his coffee cup down on the table like he's scared he might spook her.

"Hey," he says, clearly caught off-guard. She rarely speaks to him in public these days, and never outside of their offices.

She opens her mouth to tell him about Luke's scheme, but for some reason, she totally loses her nerve. "So… Wall Street Journal," she says, pointing at the newspaper.

"Yeah," he says, cautious, and folds the paper over on itself. And then, maybe uncomfortable with the weird silence that has descended on the conversation, he continues: "People say print journalism is a dying medium, but I like it."

"Do you want to go on a date with me?" she blurts.

"Do I… sorry, what?"

"Luke…" she begins, and then haltingly continues through the rest of the explanation. "Thinks that it would be… good for the public image if it looks like… our offices… get along."

"Ah," Gareth says, leaning back in his chair.

"So he asked me if we could go on, you know. A fake date."

"What do I get out of it?" he asks as he sips his coffee, having recouped his usual sarcastic cadence.

"To go on a date with me," she deadpans.

"That doesn't seem equitable," he says.

"Come on," she says. "It'd help Red's public image, too. We'd just have to go, like, bowling or something."

"Bowling?" he laughs.

"Or something," she says.

"I think there's a sock hop at the soda shop next Friday," he says.

"Okay," she says, putting her hands down the table as she makes to stand up. "Offer rescinded."

"I'd love to go on a date with you," he says.

"Was that so hard?" she asks.

"No, but the rest of the conversation was fun," he says. "Are you free after work tomorrow?"

"Yes," she says, after rolling her eyes, because he already knew she was.

"I'll pick you up at eight," he says, and she stands up. "Hey, wait," he says before she goes. "Can I kiss you?"

"What?" she says. "Now?"

"Since we're dating," he says.

"I just asked you out thirty seconds ago," she says. "Do you know how dating works?"

"Do _you_?"

"I'm familiar with the basics," she says.

"We've been doing this all backwards," he says, leafing through his newspaper. "I thought I'd ask."

"Goodbye, Gareth," she says, rolling her eyes as she leaves.

* * *

If somebody had told Laurel a year ago that she'd be taking her lunch breaks at the CDC, she wouldn't have known what to make of it. Now it just seems par for the course.

"You shouldn't be eating in here," Rochelle reminds her as she picks at her sandwich. But she's said the same thing almost every day since she took up temporary residence in the CDC office, and she hasn't kicked Laurel out yet. "… and honestly, I'm not entirely sure I understand your problem," she adds after a second spent looking at something on her tablet computer.

"Please don't make me explain it again," Laurel says.

"You don't want to go on a date with him because… you're already dating," Rochelle tries. (She's kind of become the de facto relationship expert of the friend group, albeit begrudgingly. Gustav started dating Dexter around the same time Laurel broke up with Anthony, and they'd quickly realized that Rochelle has things they both lack – savoir faire, for one, and a relationship that's endured eight years and two separate fellowships – so she's the authority.)

"See? You get it."

"I really don't," Rochelle says.

"It's just… complicated," Laurel says. "And I don't like complicated."

"You didn't seem particularly fond of straightforward, either," Rochelle says to her tablet. Laurel takes a petulant bite out of her sandwich and continues eating in silence.

A few minutes later the door to Rochelle's lab swings open and Gustav sticks his head in. "Hey," he says, holding up a packet of freeze-dried ramen noodles. "Can I use your microwave?"

" _No_ ," Rochelle says, shooing him off. "You guys really need to stop eating lunch here," she says to Laurel once he's gone.

"How's that going?" Laurel asks, gesturing towards the door.

"What?" Rochelle asks, glancing over her shoulder. "Oh. Uh, good, I guess," she says, returning her attention to her work. "We don't talk about our personal lives much."

"I can take a hint," Laurel says, standing up and crumpling her sandwich bag.

"Outside trashcan," Rochelle says as she goes. "And Laurel? Promise you'll have a good time on your date."

"Yeah, yeah," she says, but the sarcasm is just to stave off a deeper insecurity. This is what her life is coming to: she needs pep talks to enjoy spending time with her maybe-fake boyfriend.

* * *

There are two major hang-ups with the whole date situation. The first is that Gareth arrives at her apartment casually dressed in jeans ("What was I supposed to wear?" he teases when she expresses dismay. "A three piece suit? A tux?"). She goes back inside to change, which turns out to be a good thing, because the second hang-up is that he literally takes her to a bowling alley.

"I hate this," Laurel says when he hands her a pair of bowling shoes. "I hate you."

"No you don't," he says. "Besides, it's perfect. It's a stereotypical first date thing, so it reads. It's wholesome. And a lot of these guys are Hill staffers," he says, nodding at the room in general. "So the probability of being recognized is high. Just try to look like you like me."

"I do like you a little," she concedes.

But for all his admittedly well thought-out reasons why bowling is a good fake date, there was one piece of information he hadn't had in making the decision: Laurel is really bad at bowling. _She_ knows that, of course, but for him it's a slow discovery.

"Wow," he says after her third gutter ball. "Do you want them to put up the bumpers?" He's not joking, he's genuinely asking, which is mildly enraging but mostly just embarrassing.

"I'm fine," she insists.

"You're _really_ bad at bowling," he says.

"Nothing escapes you," she says, wiping her hands on her jeans like the problem is just that she has sweaty palms. It isn't; she's just incapable of aiming her throws. He considers her for a second.

"Okay, here," he says, handing her a bowling ball.

"It's your turn," she reminds him.

"I've got a head start," he says after glancing briefly at the scoreboard. "I'll be fine."

She rolls her eyes but takes the ball.

"Your problem," he says, checking that her grip is correct and then extending her arm out in front of her. "Is that you're sort of tossing it from the high point of your swing, which means the ball is hitting the lane hard and you don't have a lot of control over where it goes."

"Uh huh," she says.

"If you just let it go here," he says, deliberately lowering her arm. "You'll get a straighter shot."

"Great," she says, moving to make the throw.

"Wait," he says, adjusting her posture before she goes through with it. His hand ends up on her stomach as he rotates her slightly, fuller into the circle of his arms.

"You're laying it on a little thick," she says, voice low.

"Well, you're genuinely very bad at this. Lucky for us," he whispers against her ear, which despite her inward mental protests that this isn't working for him manages to send a shiver down her back.

But she has to draw the line for fake-date publicity stunts _somewhere_ , and getting Ghosted in a bowling alley seems as good a place as any. "Okay," she says, shaking him off. "I got it."

Her next attempt manages to clip a pin, and that one knocks two more over on its way down. She lets out an involuntary noise of excitement.

"Hey, see?" he says. "You're making progress."

"Let me go again," she says. "I can get a spare."

"Baby steps," he says, but he lets her take the shot anyway.

* * *

After that, she actually forgets it's a fake date – a major feat considering how heavily it's all been weighing on her mind – right up until the point when she's sitting alone in a cab, on her way to Gareth's apartment from her own (she'd insisted that he drop her off at her place and they take separate cars back to his – she believes her father has spies, even if he denies it).

That little bit of time alone that she has to reflect on the evening is what puts the doubts into her head. It's not that she didn't have a good time – she actually had fun. But she prides herself on being a practical kind of person. She appreciates what she has, and gets what she wants with hard work. She doesn't sit around thinking _what if_ or _wouldn't it be nice_.

This relationship has gotten away from her, a little bit.

When he answers the door to let her in, she doesn't waste any time in kissing him. He learned to roll with her impetuous punches early on, and it doesn't seem to surprise him. He doesn't put up any protest as she walks him backwards to the bedroom, either – he slips his hand underneath her shirt and traces the column of her spine, and her own nails bite a little harder into his shoulder.

If there's something desperate in her touch, it's there in his touch, too. There's an unwarranted sense of urgency through the whole encounter; her heart beats unpleasantly loud in her chest, and her are clumsy with trembling. But if he notices, he doesn't mention it; they hardly speak at all except for a few dispassionate words they exchange before he falls asleep.

He always falls asleep before she does. She usually takes the time to herself to answer emails or catch up on work, but now she just lays on her side of the bed, head resting on her folded arms as she watches him sleep.

She feels wild, out-of-control, and she doesn't like it. This entire evening has been strange and off-kilter, even when she was enjoying herself. But things don't _have_ to be this way, she knows – the sneaking around, the duplicity, the mind games. She opted in for all of it, and she's not altogether sure that it's what she wants anymore.

But to figure out what she _does_ want, she's got to be able to think straight, and apparently she can't do that here.

Before she really even knows what she's doing, she rolls out of bed and gets dressed. It's only as she's softly shutting his apartment door behind her that she feels a twinge of doubt.

* * *

In her five months as Luke's constituent caseworker, Laurel's kind of become an expert. She can get almost any problem sorted out on her own, which is probably for the best, because she and Luke can never seem to muster up any kind of productive atmosphere when they're in the same room.

So that's why it's surprising that they're getting a lot done right now – she's three-quarters of the way through writing some pretty killer speech copy for him ("And you thought film school was a waste of money," she's said, and he'd pointed out that she still hasn't _technically_ paid for it yet) and they're hammering out some of the finer points.

Which is, of course, the exact moment their father chooses to interrupt them.

"What's Laurel doing?" he says, having come in without knocking. They toss him twin reticent glances, but Luke's the first to respond.

"Her job," he says, before quickly continuing: "Actually, my speechwriter's job. We should fire him."

"Who, Joey?" Laurel asks, taking a sip of her coffee.

"Yeah," Luke says.

"You should. He's awful."

"Are you two done?" their father says.

"What do you want, Dad?" Laurel asks.

"Did you go _bowling_ with Gareth Ritter last night?" he asks, sounding in equal measure consternated and disappointed with her existence.

"Yes," she says.

"He took you bowling?" Luke laughs. "You should've warned him."

"He sprung it on me," Laurel says. "And what was I supposed to do once we were there already? It was weird enough already that I asked him to take me on a fake date. I didn't want to be rude. Also, I won, by the way."

"You told him?" Luke grouses.

"Was I supposed to go on an _actual_ date with him, Luke?"

Now _she's_ laying it on a little thick, and she knows it, but it seems to have done the trick both in throwing Luke off her scent and cluing her father in on the situation.

"Publicity stunt?" her father asks.

"Yeah," Laurel says. "But isn't it cool that he thought it was for real?" she adds in an aside to Luke.

"You must have been pretty convincing," Luke says with a smirk.

"Please don't use your sister as a prop," her father says.

"That's a little rich, coming from you," Luke says at approximately the same time as Laurel says "I can make my own decisions, Dad."

"I don't like it," he continues.

"Too bad," Luke says.

"You know the messed up thing is that we actually thought you'd be proud of us," Laurel says.

"This is going to backfire on you," her father says to Luke.

"How?" Laurel asks flatly.

"Dad thinks Gareth's into you," Luke tells her.

"Oh, my God."

"Honestly, if he let you win at bowling he probably _is_ into you," Luke continues, and her father mutters a few words of agreement.

"Okay, well, thank you both for the concern," she says in the least gracious tone of voice she can manage. "But I can handle myself." She drops the clipboard with Luke's speech onto his desk and stands to leave. "So you can stop discussing my personal life behind my back, alright?"

After she leaves, her father stays in Luke's office for another fifteen minutes, and she realizes that leaving them to their own devices was probably counterproductive. But, really, there's only so much she can listen to before breaking.

* * *

Gareth texts her mid-morning asking her if she wants to meet to get coffee. It's a pretty thin excuse, considering they've both already had their morning coffee, but she figures she owes him some face time and maybe an explanation, so she agrees.

"Hey," he says when he spots her, handing her a cup.

"Thanks," she says.

"Where'd you go last night?" he asks. The coffee cart in the rotunda is maybe not the most ideal place to be having this conversation, but his voice is low and his tone casual, and she finds that she isn't even that worried about people overhearing.

"Sorry," she says, first off, because she is. She's felt kind of awful about it since she cooled down on her way home. She might have some issues with long-term relationships, but she isn't the kind of person who sneaks out in the middle of the night. She's just not. "I went home. I had some things I needed to get done for work."

"You didn't say anything," he presses.

"It was late and you were asleep," she says. "I didn't want to wake you."

"All right," he says, even though he doesn't sound like he particularly believes her.

"My dad heard that we were at the bowling alley, by the way," she says after taking a sip of the coffee.

"That's a quick turnaround," he says.

"I told you he has spies," she says.

He laughs. "Speaking of. Do you see those three women standing by the newspaper rack?" Gareth says, nodding towards them. Laurel glances over her shoulder at them. They're all staring, and quickly avert their eyes when she looks their way.

"Yes," she says with the inflection of a question.

"They work in Ella Pollack's office," he says.

"So?" she asks, tugging on her earlobe absently as she considers the group of women a second time.

"So, they're spying on us."

"That seems like a logical leap," Laurel says.

"I'm going to kiss you," Gareth warns her.

"In front of people?"

"That's the general idea, isn't it?"

She considers the pros and cons for a second. "Fine," she says, putting her coffee cup down and squaring off with him. His expression becomes overly-serious immediately.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

"Yes," she says.

"You don't need a second to prepare?"

"Just do it," she says.

"Okay," he says, shuffling a step forward. He cups her jaw to tilt her chin up, and for all that she'd been resolved to be difficult about this, she feels herself leaning towards him in anticipation. When he kisses her, it's a sweet and fleeting thing – not exactly chaste, but flirtatious and lighthearted.

He breaks away from her first.

"Are they still watching us?" she asks.

He glances in their direction. "They're scandalized," he says.

"Good," she says, still a little flustered. At some point her hand ended up on his chest, bracing herself there, and she withdraws it quickly, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Good job."

"I gotta get back to work," he says. She nods, but before she can turn to go he catches her hand in his. "Hey, are we alright?"

"Yeah," she says through the lump in her throat. "Why?"

"I don't know," he says, sounding more like he's hedging than actually at a loss for words. "You seemed distracted last night."

"I was, a little," she says. "But don't worry about it, okay?"

"Okay," he says. She wants to kiss him, to _convince_ him totally and fully. But even though they just kissed and everyone saw them, it was for show. A real kiss would be something different, crossing an invisible line that's getting harder and harder to delineate.

"I'll see you later?" she says instead.

"See you later," he says.

Before they part ways, she squeezes his hand and the corners of his mouth tick up into a reluctant smile, and that's enough for her.

* * *

That Friday, Luke and Red are slated to be on Misty's show. Laurel turns the TV in her office to NSW but has to put the show on mute while she waits for the segment to start. Even the visual presence of Misty's show out of the corner of her eye is a little grating, but she manages to focus on the constituent files spread across her desk fairly dutiful for the next few minutes.

Right before the segment starts, Gareth sticks his head into her office.

"Did I miss it?" he asks.

"No," she says, holding her hand out expectantly. He hands her the salad she told him to bring her for lunch and pulls one of the chairs over to her desk so he can see the television. "She's not going to bring it up," she adds. (They have a running bet on what talk show their fake relationship gets mentioned on first and who brings it up; it had seemed far-fetched at the time of the bet, but they became a hot-button item after kissing in the rotunda. Laurel's got her sixty dollars on Ella Pollack trying to smear the senators with the gossip, but Gareth thinks Misty will cave before anyone actually involved does.)

"I have a feeling," he says.

"They're talking about the budget cuts," Laurel says, gesturing to the TV with her fork. "What we're doing in our free time isn't exactly relevant."

"I'm right. You'll see," he says.

"You're amazingly self-centered, you know that?"

"Unmute it," he says as the segment comes on.

Everyone manages to discuss the budget, albeit not very civilly, for the majority of the segment. But when Luke ends a line of conversation with a declaration that the only solution to the long-term budget problems is the parties working together, Misty spots her opening.

"Speaking of bipartisan cooperation…" she begins in a tone much too salacious to be political.

"She's so predictable," Gareth says, aside. "It's actually a little disappointing."

"Is it true, Senator Healy, that your half-sister is dating Senator Wheatus's chief of staff?"

"Well, first of all, she's my sister," Luke-on-the-screen says. "We don't count family by halves."

He goes on to spout some patter about how great he thinks it is, but Laurel's distracted.

"Why did she call me his half-sister?" Laurel asks, genuinely baffled. It's not exactly a secret that Luke's mother died when he was very young; as far as the Healy family scandals go, that one was too tragic and mundane to milk for very long. But they don't talk about it, either, and off the top of her head she can't actually think of the last time someone described her that way.

"It makes you sound illegitimate," Gareth says, unphased.

" _Awesome_ ," she says, and switches the TV over to Claudia's show. "Well, that's enough of that."

"I have to watch it for work," Gareth says, motioning for her to give him the remote.

"Then you should've gone to the studio. Why _aren't_ you there?"

He's become very interested in his phone. "I don't go to NSW anymore," he says at length.

"Avoiding your ex," she says, nodding. "Very classy."

"When's the last time you talked to Onofrio?" he counters.

"That's… different," she says.

"How?" Gareth asks, and she's not really sure where to start in on that. It's true that ninety percent of the reason that she's avoiding Anthony is that all their conversations are painfully awkward, but the root cause is different. She'd accused him of being infected by the brain-bugs, and although that had ultimately turned out to be untrue it _had_ keyed him into the fact that she has some really deep-seated trust issues, which was apparently a dealbreaker for him. And as far as Laurel knows, Gareth pretty much just lost interest in Misty after a few weeks.

"First of all, he dumped me, I didn't dump him," she says. "And if I did have to talk to him for work I'd just suck it up."

"You're a bigger person than I am," Gareth says, and it sounds a little backhanded with his edge of sarcasm behind the words.

"You should get out of here before someone sees you," she says, shooing him away.

"It's alright if we're seen together," he reminds her, even though he's already standing to go. "We're dating, remember?"

"I had totally forgotten," she says.

"By the way, I got us reservations for dinner," he says. "We can just leave straight from work."

"I don't think we have to keep going on fake dates now that the beans are spilled," she says.

"No," he agrees. "But we might as well make the most of it while we have the excuse."

"So, a real date?" she asks.

"Kind of our first real one," he says after pretending to think about it for a second.

"Huh," she says, not really sure of what else she could say that would sound unaffected.

"Huh," he parrots back at her, teasingly.

She rolls her eyes and he starts to leave. He pauses in her doorway on his way out. "You owe me sixty bucks, by the way," he says. She tosses a crouton at him as he goes.

* * *

This all continues for another week and a half – a kind of cold war of commitment. The more time that passes, the more aggressively boyfriend-y Gareth acts around her in public. On the surface, it's become a running gag between them, but she also now has the spare key to his apartment on her keyring, and that doesn't feel like a joke at all.

It's a Wednesday morning – exactly two weeks after he kissed her in front of Ella's staffers – and she's working with Luke on a speech for a function their father is hosting next Saturday. This time when someone interrupts them, it's Gareth, but he also doesn't bother to knock.

"I brought you coffee," he says.

"Why?" she asks.

"Because we're dating." He bumps the door closed behind him so the staffers can't overhear the conversation. "And people who are dating sometimes do nice things for each other."

"You're an ass," she says, but she takes the coffee from him anyway.

"Red wanted me to thank you, by the way," Gareth says to Luke. "This has been great for our public image."

"Ours too," Luke retorts with a drawn smile.

"Great," Gareth says.

"Great," Luke says as Gareth leaves.

After the door shuts, there's a moment of silence between them.

"I hate that guy," Luke says.

"You do such a good job of hiding it, though," Laurel says, rolling her eyes. She returns her attention to the speech, but Luke reaches out and rotates the coffee cup so he can read the side.

"He knows your order," he says, sounding overly suspicious.

"That means he's in love with me, right?" Laurel asks as she crosses out an unnecessary clause.

"It means something," Luke says. Laurel sets her pen down on the pages.

"What it means is he's a jerk," she says. "He thinks this whole thing is hilarious."

"That's why you shouldn't have told him what you were doing," Luke says. "If you hadn't, you could just break up with him."

* * *

But the crux of the issue is that she doesn't _want_ to break up with him. She definitely doesn't want to call it off for real, and even giving up the fake relationship seems like a loss at this point. Being able to go out together and not worry about getting sighted has been a relief; they spent so much time sequestered away in his apartment before.

At the same time, though, she feels like she's getting too complacent, and she's still not sure she wants to be in a real, honest-to-God relationship with him either. That would come with strings and consequences, which are things she isn't wild about.

Since Luke mentioned breaking up, though, she's been thinking about it a lot. It's Friday now, and they're staying in for the evening. It was their pre-fake-dating routine – take out Thai food, a decently expensive bottle of wine, and a twenty-minute argument about what they should watch on television – and after a long week at work, it's all she can muster the energy for.

They're on schedule for the argument phase of the evening, so she figures it's as good a time as any to bring it up.

"Hey," she says as he hands her a second glass of wine. "Have you made any plans, for, you know, us?"

"No," he says.

"Good," she says. "Don't." From her spot on the sofa, she can hear him moving around in the kitchen very clearly; he pauses at this.

"Are you breaking up with me?" he asks.

" _Fake_ breaking up," she says even though he was joking. "Luke and my dad are getting suspicious and we're not really getting anything out of it anymore."

"Would it be the worst thing in the world if they found out?" he asks as he comes into the living room and sits down next to her. She bites down her kneejerk response of _yes_ to actually consider the question: the implications of it, how genuine he's being, what she actually feels.

"If they ever do, I wouldn't want it to be like this," she says. "Also, they _really_ don't like you."

"I've gotten that impression," he says.

"So no more dates for a while?" she asks.

"It was nice while it lasted," he says, and she nods in agreement. They sit in silence as she drinks her wine. After a moment, he continues. "You want to hear some mental gymnastics?" he asks.

"Always," she says, very serious.

"If you feel the need to clarify that you're _fake_ breaking up with me and not _actually_ breaking up with me, doesn't that mean we're _actually_ dating?"

Her head tilts back as she laughs, but it's not the craziest leap of faith he's ever made, logic-wise. "Yeah," she says after she sobers. "I guess we kind of are."


	3. Methods for a Healthy Compromise

It's Tuesday night and Gareth is making her do two things she hates: chop onions and debate economics.

Laurel wouldn't describe herself as a _socialist_ , exactly, but this is still one venue of opinion in which they dramatically clash. And on top of that, it's one that she doesn't really understand that well. She's been steeped in political discourse her entire life, but once she starts to get down in the weeds of the country's economy, she loses her way. And Gareth has one of his two bachelor's degrees in it, so he has her at a disadvantage.

For instance, he's clearly winning this argument.

And she's crying. Because of the onions.

"Well, what we're doing right now isn't working," she says, trying to wipe her eyes with the backs of her wrists.

"Neither has socialism, historically speaking," he says.

"Fine," she says, dropping the knife into the sink as she finishes with the onions. "Maybe there's _no_ good way to do things."

"Watch out," he laughs as she washes her hands. By the time she's done he's thankfully added the onions to the pan to simmer, and the noxious fumes have begun to clear. "The DC cynicism is getting to you."

"It's a good thing I'm leaving next month," she comments off-hand.

He doesn't respond and they lapse into an awkward silence. He stirs the sauce with a single-minded focus and she pours herself a glass of wine. Then, abruptly, he continues like there wasn't a minute long gap in their rapport.

"I've been meaning to ask you about that," he says, still staring at the stove.

"About what?"

"When you're leaving," he says.

She leans up against the counter next to the stove it make it harder for him to avoid eye contact. "My last day at work is the Friday after the election," she says, and he glances up at her.

"And then what happens?" he says.

"I don't know," she says, setting her wine glass down on the counter and crossing her arms over her chest. "Then I go back to LA, I guess."

"Are you flying out that night or are you going to stay the weekend?" he asks dryly—almost _bitterly_ , and she feels like she's been ambushed.

"I'll send you my itinerary," she says.

"I don't want your itinerary," he says. "I want to not feel like I'm going to wake up one morning and find out you're gone."

Any responses she might've had, even the defensive and infantile ones, get caught up in her throat. She lets out a strangled sound, but he doesn't give her time to recoup.

"You know what I meant. I'm asking what's going to happen with us."

"Nothing's going to happen with us," she says, even though she's not sure why she's digging her feet in, exactly, besides the panic. For all she's been dreading this conversation she never put a lot of thought into what she'd say during it. "I'm going back to LA in November. You always knew that was the plan."

"Right," he says. "I just don't understand—what are you—are we just going to stop talking, when you leave? You get on the plane and I never see you again?"

"We can't exactly do the hook-up thing long distance," she says.

"That's not what this is and you know it," he says, turning the stove off even though the food's not done and moving into the living room. She hangs back and watches him lean his weight on the back of the couch.

Her head is swimming uncomfortably and her fight-or-flight instinct is kicking in hard. _He's right_ , the little voice in the back of her head tells her. _But you're still leaving_ , she reminds herself. She's got to go back to LA. No—she _wants_ to go back to LA. It's where her life is. This was always meant to be temporary. And long distance relationships never work; they fizzle out over weeks or months and it's always painful. If she's going to hang this relationship, she'd rather its neck just break and have it be over with.

"Remember what you said when we got together?" he asks when she fails to respond.

"Maybe," she says. "Which part?"

He turns around and sits against the back of the couch, fully facing her. It leaves a good twenty feet between them, but the space still seems small. "You said there wasn't a point in thinking long term because there wasn't even really a guaranteed short term."

"Yeah, I remember," she says.

"I want the long term," he says.

"Well, there isn't one," she snaps, because the fact that he's asking _now_ is too much for her to process. "I'm not staying here."

"I know," he begins.

"I'm going back to Los Angeles," she continues without waiting for him to finish.

"I know, but—"

"There's no way to make that work," she says. They're not exactly shouting, but their volume has been on a steady increase over the course of the exchange, and her next interjection is definitely pushing the boundary: "There just _isn't_."

"There are solutions," he says.

"What, talking on the phone?" she asks. "Would you really be happy with that?"

"We could visit on weekends—"

"It's a five hour flight," she says.

"I know it is, but that would be better than—"

"It'd be expensive and exhausting and it still wouldn't—"

"It would just be temporary, Laurel," he interrupts, running a hand through his hair. "Until we figured something out."

"What's your brilliant permanent solution to this problem?" she asks, breaking eye contact with him.

"I don't know. I could move—"

"Don't," she says, holding up her hand to shut him up. "Don't say something like that just so you can win the argument."

"I'm not," he says.

"You're not going to move to Los Angeles," she protests, although the words come out lacking the venom she'd intended them to have.

"Maybe I would," he snaps, firmly in shouting territory himself. She must look affronted, because he takes a second to compose himself before continuing. "It might be something I'd consider," he says, and she turns around to retrieve her wine glass. "I don't know. It's hard to _make_ decisions like that when you won't talk to me about anything."

"I'm not going to take the blame here," she says, downing the rest of her wine. He's crossed the room back into the kitchen and she can feel him hovering by her shoulder. "I've been really straightforward."

"No you haven't," he rebukes gently, which is almost more infuriating than the yelling. "I know what you said when we started seeing each other, but we weren't ever that casual. And we're definitely not _now_. You might as well live here."

Her face screws up involuntarily. "What does that mean?" she asks.

"When's the last time you spent the whole night at your place?" he challenges, and she has to admit that she can't _quite_ call a concrete date to mind. She chews her tongue. "You draw these arbitrary lines, but that doesn't make this something it's not. You know, just because you don't leave your things here or you won't tell your family—"

"That's not why I haven't told my family," she interrupts.

"Then why haven't you?"

"Because they're _awful_ ," she says. "Because they can't keep their noses out of my business, and if they knew they'd make _my_ life hell, and I'd only catch half the flak they'd give you."

"Well," he says. "It makes me feel like you're planning for a clean break."

"I'm doing it for _your_ benefit," she continues instead of responding to that.

"Then tell them," he says.

She gapes for a second like a fish out of water. "What?" she asks.

"If you're doing it for my sake, and I want you to tell them, then why wouldn't you just tell them?"

"Does it really matter, at this point?" she asks.

"It does to me," he says.

"It wouldn't change anything," she says instead of asking him if he's serious, because (for some reason) he clearly is. "There's still the distance…"

"It doesn't matter. Just tell them. Or, just… just say you're in," he says. "And I promise we can figure all that out."

But that's still too much, way too much to process, let alone handle. And this isn't what she came here for tonight. She gives him a once over – the downturned corners of his mouth, the tense line of his shoulders, his hand laid palm down on the counter.

"Look," she says, reaching out and twining her fingers through one of his belt loops to tug him closer to her. "I don't want to think about it right now. It's still five weeks away. Can't we…" She gestures to the still half-cooked meal on the stove, the open wine bottle on the counter, the already-set kitchen table.

"No," he says.

"No?"

"I… Laurel, I can't act like everything's normal with a countdown looming over my head," he says, wrapping his hand around her wrist to disentangle her grip. "It's not a lot to ask. If you have to think about it, maybe you should do it at your place."

It takes her a second to process his words, but when she does she jerks her hand away from his. "Are you seriously kicking me out?"

"I'm asking you to stay," he says.

"But only if I agree to do what you want," she snaps back.

"I think it's what you want, too," he says.

But he can't know what she wants, because _she_ doesn't know what she wants – not a hundred percent, anyway. She grits her teeth for a second, so hard she's scared they might crack. And then all at once she bursts forward and grabs her shoes off the floor, her coat off a chair, her bag off the couch. She gathers them up in her arms without trying to put herself together.

He takes a second to react, but then follows her to the door as she's pulling it open. "Laurel," he says, moving with a half-hearted effort, like he already knows the outcome is inevitable. "Come on. Don't run away."

"I'm not running away," she says, turning on her heel in the doorway. "You're making me leave."

She waits for him to say something else, but he doesn't; he just fixes her with a serious, solemn look. She feels like an idiot, standing with one stocking foot into the hallway and all her things clutched awkwardly to her chest, like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Enough's enough.

"I'll see you at work," she says at length, and then turns to flee down the hallway.

She doesn't look back before entering the stairwell at the end of the hall, but she doesn't hear his front door close behind her, either.

* * *

Laurel doesn't go back to her apartment.

She walks around the block and past Gareth's building three times, but doesn't go back inside. She considers going home again, but gives the notion up; she's too restless. Finally she catches a cab and gives the driver the first address that comes to mind.

Since the sex scandal broke, Luke's been sleeping in his home office instead of the master bedroom. And in the hope she might not wake up Germaine or the baby, Laurel creeps around the side of the house and taps directly on the sliding glass door instead of ringing the doorbell.

The shock on Luke's face when he pulls back the curtain to find her standing there in the dark would almost be comical in any other situation, but instead she bursts out in ugly tears before he even has the door all the way open.

"Woah, hey," he says, pulling her inside as he hugs her. "What happened?"

He has to ask her two more times before she gets a coherent answer out, and even then she only manages it because his own panic is clearly reaching a crisis point. It's hard to _say_ , though – especially when it's prefaced by _no, nobody's dead, I'm not hurt, it's not an emergency_.

She gets out first that she was kind-of-dumped, kind-of-walked-out on someone. And then, somewhere in the backwards avalanche of details she provide to contextualize this information, she lets out that the someone in question is Gareth. To his credit, Luke seems to take this in relative stride along with everything else, but that _is_ the juncture at which he asks her to start from the top.

"I don't even know why I'm so upset," she says as she wraps up the whole story. They've moved to the sofa in the living room, slouched down in their seats with their feet up on the coffee table. She wipes her eyes a final time as she speaks, looking up at the slanting ceiling instead of at her brother.

"Yes you do," Luke says, and she offers him a withering glare side-long. "Don't look at me like that. You do."

"Maybe," she sighs. "Yeah."

Luke hasn't offered her any practical advice, but that's not really what she came here for. Honestly, just sitting in silence with him is enough. It's been a long time since she actually told him about one of her break-ups. She'd always call him when her middle and high school relationships had gone up in flames, and he'd always drive her out to a diner and buy her a milkshake no matter what hour of the day it was. They were closer in their adolescent years; adulthood has opened a chasm between them that she doesn't try to bridge often enough.

"I _knew_ you were sleeping with him," Luke adds after a long silence.

And _there's_ the teasing she expected. The teasing always makes her feel better, though.

"You did not," she says with a snuffly laugh.

"I had serious suspicions," Luke says.

"Before or after you made me date him as a publicity stunt?" Laurel asks.

"First of all, we both know I couldn't _make_ you do anything if you didn't actually want to do it," Luke says. "And second of all, before. Way before."

"You're the worst," Laurel says.

"Yeah," Luke agrees, but he does it laughingly.

Down the hall, Graham releases a damp and wailing sob.

"Great," Luke sighs, patting Laurel on the knee as he stands up. "Now I have two crying babies to deal with."

While Luke's checking on Graham, Laurel checks her phone. She doesn't have any messages or missed calls, and it's pushing one in the morning. She wonders idly if Gareth is still awake. He'd be asleep by now, most nights.

She taps her fingernails on her phone case and stares at the call button.

Before she has time to make any snap decisions, though, Luke returns with the baby, whose fussing has settled down into a much more gentle babble of half-sounds.

"It's Aunt Laurel," Luke tells Graham as he sits down on the sofa again.

"Hi," she coos, holding out her arms. Luke passes the baby over without much hesitation, and settles in as Laurel cradles Graham in her arms.

"Impossible to be sad when you're looking at that face," Luke says.

"Yes it is," Laurel says, still in that stupid talking-to-a-baby voice she can't stop herself from doing. Graham's got her index finger in an impressive vice grip. "He's getting strong," she adds, grown-up style.

"And big, right?" Luke agrees. "He's going to be a linebacker for sure."

"Glad you're already planning his life for him," Laurel says.

"Well, I have to have expectations or he won't be able to feel like a disappointment," Luke says. "It's just the circle of life, you know."

"Wow. Dad really messed you up."

"I'm kidding," Luke says. "He could play safety and I'd still be proud of him."

"What if he plays soccer?" Laurel asks.

" _That's_ unacceptable," Luke says, and they both laugh. Graham laughs too, and it's adorable. Luke must notice that she's affected by this, because he shifts gears quickly. "You know," he says. "Babies grow up fast."

"I'm familiar with the concept of aging, yes," she agrees, although she does it without her usual bite or volume, because Graham's nodding off again.

"Pretty soon he's going to be talking and walking…" Luke says.

"Maxing out his first credit card," Laurel continues in a deadpan. "Totaling a 2032 Prius."

"I'm just saying," Luke says. "There's gonna be a lot of stuff happening in the next year that you maybe don't want to miss."

"I know what you're saying," Laurel says quietly.

"It's okay if you want the same thing for yourself that your family wants for you," Luke says as she smooths down one of Graham's dark cowlick curls. "Nobody's going to think less of you for it."

And for all she loves her brother, she still can't help but feel a pang of suspicion at it all. He's told her candidly that he wants her to be his deputy communications director; the position will be vacant after the election when Scarlett is replaced as chief of staff and everyone else shuffles up the line of duty. But using his four-month old son as leverage would be playing dirty, even for a Healy man.

"I hope you never go into politics," she whispers to Graham as she gingerly hands him over to Luke.

"Funny," Luke says, standing up. Before he goes back to Graham's room, though, he pauses one last time and fixes her with a look. "Think about it, okay?"

"Yeah," Laurel says, looking at her phone where it still rests face-down on the sofa cushion. "Yeah, I'll think about it."

* * *

Laurel stays home from work on Wednesday and instead opts to spend the day feeling sorry for herself.

It's not her style; usually when a relationship goes south it makes her want to get out of the house and do something good. But she's smart enough to realize that her current misery is at least a _little_ bit self-imposed, and on top of that her current job isn't exactly big on the satisfying accomplishments anyway.

It's noon, she's still in her pajamas, and she's contemplating how she can get Rochelle to commiserate with her without telling her to just suck it up and talk out her issues (which is the sound advice she knows she'd get) when her phone rings. She sits up to answer it without checking the caller ID.

"Hello?" she says.

"Your boyfriend is skulking around the office," Luke informs her without so much as a word of greeting.

She flops back against her pillow, absorbing the information. "Define skulking," she says.

"Loitering. Looking dejected. Asking the staffers when you'll be back," Luke says. "He didn't bring any flowers, though," he adds disapprovingly.

"Why would he bring flowers to my office?" she asks.

"Contrition."

"That's not really—"

"Now he's checking your door to see if you're in there after all," Luke interjects. "For someone so good at his job, he's not very smart."

"Are you just standing around watching him?" Laurel asks, suddenly mortified by the prospect.

"No," Luke says. " _I'm_ in my office. He's skulking in my line of sight. Why? Do you want me to go out there and tell him you moved to Melanesia?" Luke asks. Then, after a beat: "Laurel?"

"Sorry," she says. "I was reeling over the fact that you actually know where the Solomon Islands are."

"I've been brushing up on foreign policy," he says.

"Don't talk to him, please," she says, rolling over and pressing her face into her pillow for a second before continuing. "In fact, stop looking at him. Just don't interact with him at all."

"Oops," Luke says. "He saw me."

"Oh my God. Luke," she complains.

"Should I wave?"

"Do not wave," she says, although it's followed by a guilty silence on the other end of the line in which he is definitely, absolutely waving at Gareth. "You are so embarrassing," she says.

"Ah, he's lucky I don't beat him up," Luke says.

"Turn the big brother dial down three notches," she says.

"He made you cry, Laurel," Luke says.

"Leave Gareth alone," she reiterates.

"Okay, okay," he says, although as far as promises go it's a pretty tepid-sounding one. "You have to come to work tomorrow, by the way," he informs her. "One day paid pity party only."

"I'll try to pull myself together," she says.

"Bye," Luke says.

"Bye," she says, and drops the phone on her bed and pressing the heels of her hands hard into her eyes.

So, he's looking for her in her office.

The logical conclusion is that he wants to talk to her about something, and she can't help but wonder what it might be. But even though her curiosity is dangerously morbid, there's no denying the simple fact that if he _really_ wanted to talk to her, he could just call. That hasn't happened; he hasn't even texted.

She glances at her phone's dark screen from beneath her hand, which she still has melodramatically draped across her eyes.

Annoyingly, Luke is right. Sitting around and wallowing isn't doing her any good. All she's accomplished so far today is coming up with another handful of half-baked reasons why staying in DC would be impossible. And sitting around trying to talk herself out of something she isn't fully sure she doesn't want to do is an awful use of her time.

She throws back her covers and clamors out of bed. There's got to be _something_ she can do to clear her head.

* * *

Six hours later and Laurel's apartment is as clean as it's ever been, but she hasn't figured out what to do about Luke's job offer.

Or Gareth.

And still bereft of his cooking skills, she doesn't have many options for dinner besides ordering out.

After shuffling through the take-out menus that live on her kitchen counter, she eventually settles on Thai food. It doesn't even occur to her that she might have subconsciously chosen the Thai place because it's Wednesday, and she and Gareth ate there together exclusively on Fridays – until she arrives at the restaurant to pick up her order and sees him standing at the counter, also waiting.

She freezes in the doorway, but before she can decide what to do, he glances up reflexively at the sound of the bell. He must have had the same notion as her about Thai being a safe bet, because he looks unpleasantly surprised to see her there, too.

Every hour or so this afternoon, she had entertained the idea of calling him. But he hadn't contacted her, and she hadn't wanted to reach out first without any solid news one way or the other. And since she still doesn't have anything to say to him, really, her flight or fight response is kicking in hard. Running away would be childish and stupid, though, and she knows it.

"Hey," she says cautiously as she approaches the counter.

"Hey," he says, his body twisted at a vaguely awkward angle, like he can't decide whether or not he should face her. A beat elapses before he continues. "You weren't at work today."

"I know," she says, even though she obviously should know her own whereabouts. Luckily for her, they're interrupted briefly as Gareth's order comes up and he pays for it, but even given the easy out he doesn't leave immediately.

"I tried to stop by your office," he says. It's a valiant effort at putting the conversation back on track, and the next thing she asks should be _what did you want to talk about?_ , but the remark just reminds her of the waving incident. Her nose crinkles in embarrassment and distaste.

"Did my brother talk to you?" she asks.

"No," Gareth says, shifting the bag of food uncomfortably in his arms. "No, he didn't. But… you told him?"

"Yeah," Laurel says. "I just—I needed to talk to someone about it," she says.

"Sure," Gareth says.

"But I asked him to—" Laurel says, tripping over her own words. "He won't bother you or anything," she settles on.

"Good," he says. "I gotta go," he adds after a second, gesturing towards the door.

"See you around," Laurel says.

"Yeah," he agrees, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he turns to leave.

And maybe she was imagining it, but he almost sounded _disappointed_ to hear Luke wouldn't be giving him grief.

* * *

Laurel's back at work the next day, as per Luke's demands, but she still isn't exactly _working_. She spends the majority of the morning exchanging emails with her landlord (happy to re-up her lease with a reasonable price hike) and her tenants in Los Angeles (delighted to continue renting). Both exchanges go so smoothly that she stares at her laptop screen chewing her tongue for a minute before moving on to her next sticking point.

With work and accommodations sorted out, she falls back on her primary concern: finishing her documentary. The money is still an issue, but she's got her father's promised hundred grand, and she's filmed projects on tighter budgets before.

At half past ten she calls her production partner, who sounds very much like he just rolled out of bed. Jae's been her co-conspirator and sound guy since they were in film school together, and the idea of finishing her project without his support is nearly unfathomable to her, so she won't go forward without him.

But when she haltingly asks if another year collecting funds is worth the effort, his response isn't what she'd expected (something like "Screw DC! It's been forever and we miss you at bar night. Come home and we'll figure it out") and is instead patently _enthusiastic_ (he's booked a job that'll take him to Iceland for ten months, which he's been dreading telling her about since it conflicted with their previously planned shoot, and he closes the conversation with a well-meant "Take as long as you need!").

She hangs up the phone feeling a little blindsided and a lot out of excuses.

Lunch with Gustav doesn't do much to help, either; when she asks him when he thinks the bug stuff will be over, he fixes her with a solemn look and tells her point-blank "It might never be over".

By the time she returns to the office, her resolve is more or less steeled.

"I want the job," she tells Luke before the door to his office has even swung shut behind her.

He glances up at her, then leans back in his chair appraisingly.

"That was quick," he says.

Laurel rolls her eyes and drops her purse on the floor as she sinks into one of the chairs across from him. "Can I do anything in this family without being criticized?" she asks.

"I wasn't criticizing," Luke says.

"It feels a little bit like you are," she says.

"I guess I'm just _surprised_ ," Luke begins, and she already feels her eyes preparing to roll out of her skull at his tone of voice. "That you'd make a big life decision like this over a guy."

She makes a soft noise of disgust in response, not even sure where she should start cracking in on all the reasons why that constitutes criticism. "That's so not what's going on here," she says instead.

"Really?" Luke says, returning his attention to whatever he was working on before she came in. "Because nothing else has changed."

"You're not allowed to make fun of me for saying this," she says, which draws his full attention again. "But it kind of feels like the universe was pushing me in this direction." To his credit, he doesn't audibly laugh, but the amusement is still there in his expression. She continues defensively: "Everything just kind of worked out, all right?"

"Okay, okay," he says. "Well, I'm glad you listened to the universe."

"Me too," she agrees, standing up to go. Before she reaches the door, though, she turns around again. "Hey, could you not mention this to Dad?" she asks.

"Which part?" Luke asks. "The job, or that you're staying in town, or the secret boyfriend you're definitely not basing your decisions on?"

"The job," she says, and then backpedals. "Any of it."

"Sure," he agrees easily. "Why?"

"The crowdfunding campaign didn't go well so I figured I'd try to shake him down for the rest of the money," she says, even though the words leave a bitter taste on her tongue. "And if he knows I'm going to stay either way I lose that whole… bargaining chip."

"Makes sense. Let me know if you need help," he says. Luke's willingness to participate in a plan would usually be enough to turn her off it entirely, but she does need the money, so she just tries to swallow her pride.

Everything's working out, she reminds herself, and maybe sometimes the ends do justify the means.

* * *

It's not like, up to this point, Laurel's relationship with Gareth has been all smooth sailing. Just the opposite, actually. It's pretty much been the Magellan's Strait of her romantic life.

But resolving the many arguments they've had has always been easy: he's never declined an apology from her, and the single time she'd shot him down she had caved the next day, anyway. Still, as she heads over to Gareth's apartment after work, her stomach twists itself into anxious knots.

She lets herself in downstairs, but hesitates outside his apartment door. His key is still on her keyring, but just walking into his apartment unannounced feels inappropriate when they're on uncertain terms. After loitering for a minute or so, she finally plucks up the courage to knock on the door.

Gareth answers quickly, and seems surprised to see her there – albeit in a good way, this time.

"Laurel," he says. "Hey."

"Do you have a second?" she asks, stepping forward across the threshold.

"Uh, actually…" he stutters, moving instinctively to block her from entering.

"What," she says. "Do you have another girl in there?"

He glances back towards his kitchen and hesitates in answering just long enough for a cold pit to settle in Laurel's stomach.

"Oh," she says. "Okay. Nevermind," she says, turning to leave. He catches her wrist in his hand and pulls her back, though.

"No. _No_. It's just…" he starts, and then shuffles aside to let the door to his apartment swing further open. "My sister's visiting."

"Oh," Laurel says again, feeling supremely stupid and a little vulnerable.

"Hey, Cathy?" he calls out before she has time to formulate an actual response.

"Yeah?" someone responds from the kitchen.

"Laurel's here," Gareth says.

There's a pause, and Laurel can hear her shuffling something around in the kitchen before walking over to the front door. While she's still out of sight, Gareth turns around so he can speak to her more directly, maybe at her prompting. Laurel can't hear everything they say, but she's pretty sure the exchange culminates in Gareth saying "I didn't ask her."

Finally, Cathy sticks her head out from behind the doorframe, although she hangs behind Gareth instead of stepping out into the open. "Hi," she says.

Gareth's sister is a pretty but reedy-looking girl; she's almost as tall as her brother, and taller than Laurel is even in her heels. Laurel's only ever seen her in pictures before, and she looks younger in real life, maybe thanks to her thick-rimmed glasses magnifying her already doelike blue eyes or the fact that her thick mess of blonde hair is up in a pep-squad style ponytail tied with a ribbon.

"Hi, Cathy," Laurel says. "I'm Laurel. It's nice to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

"Nice to meet you too," she says, and then returns her attention to her brother. "There's only enough food for two people," she says in an aside.

"Oh, that's okay," Laurel says, taking a reflexive step backwards into the hall. "I can't stay."

"You're welcome to, if you want," Gareth hastens to add.

"We're watching The Shining," Cathy adds.

"No," Laurel says, still backing out of the apartment. "I know you guys don't get to see each other very often."

"I think Cathy had some questions she wanted to ask you, actually," he continues over her.

"Me?" Laurel asks, gesturing to herself. He nods. "All right," she says, glancing over at Cathy.

"I'm applying to UCLA for grad school," she says.

There's a question or two buried in there for sure, but Laurel's a little caught off-guard by the fact that Cathy already seems to know that she went to UCLA for film school.

"It's a great school," Laurel says finally. "Are you – were you thinking of going for film?"

"No. For art. Photography," Cathy says, twisting her hair ribbon around her index finger.

"Right, of course," Laurel says. "You took those, didn't you?" Laurel asks, indicating a series of framed Polaroid photos Gareth has displayed in his living room. They're all of the same maple tree, leaves falling or caught on the wind or held up to the sky by a hand, and Laurel has always admired them for their composition and execution.

"When I was twelve," Cathy says. "He won't take them down."

"I like them," Gareth says.

" _Okay_ ," Cathy says with a long-suffering affectation.

"I do actually have to go," Laurel continues. "But if you want to talk about grad school sometime, you can call, or email me…"

"Email's better," Cathy says. "I'll write you."

"Perfect," Laurel says. "Well…" she says, gesturing out the door.

"I'll walk you down," Gareth offers, and before she has a chance to respond he's out of the apartment and the door is swinging closed behind him.

* * *

They're quiet on the walk down, but the silence as amicable as it is awkward. When they pause on the sidewalk, Laurel tucks her hands into her pockets and glances up at him.

"Sorry about that," he sighs after a second. "I didn't– I wasn't expecting you."

"It's alright," Laurel says, and means it. "I probably should've called ahead."

"You don't have to," he says. "I just didn't mean to spring anything on you."

"She seems nice," Laurel says.

"Yeah," Gareth agrees.

"She knows who I am," Laurel continues with the vague intonation of a question.

He glances skyward as a sheepish smile graces his features. "I talk about you a lot," he admits.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he says.

That makes sense; she knows plenty about Cathy from what he's told her (she's a senior in college, and living on her own for the first time, and sometimes Gareth's anxiety over this strays from "worried big brother" territory to something closer to "fussy mother hen"). But still, the idea that she's a topic of conversation between them to the point that her alma mater is being discussed tickles her a little.

She looks away from him, but she can't quite keep the smirk off her face. "I forgot to give her my email," she says. "Can you pass it along?"

"Sure," he says. "Just as a forewarning, her emails are long. She's an epistolarian."

"That's fine," Laurel laughs, and the conversation lapses for a moment.

"Did you…" he begins, ruffling his hair as he glances down at his feet. "Did you need something, when you came over?"

"Yeah," she says, curling her hands into fists in her coat pockets. "Uhm, I just came over to tell you… I thought about everything. A _lot_ ," she adds for emphasis. "And when I took everything into consideration – work, my family… you…" She pauses, glancing up to gauge his reaction. His lips are pressed into a tight line, but he doesn't look either concerned or hopeful, just attentive. "It wasn't so hard to make a decision."

"Okay," he says, softly prompting her continue.

It's a little silly, the apprehension she feels over telling him that she's staying. She'd been so adamant in their argument the other night that it feels like – like giving up, or giving a part of herself up. And she _means_ it when she says there were a lot of factors that went into it, but Luke already thinks she made the decision because of Gareth, and she doesn't know if she can handle Gareth thinking that too.

After a moment of chewing her tongue, she just vaults forward: "I took a job in my brother's office. A more permanent one. I start after the election."

"You're staying?"

"Yeah," she says. "For a year, at least. I'm going to be the deputy communications director, so this is going to be kind of a nightmare, ethically..." she says, gesturing between them.

"We can figure it out," he says.

"And," she says before she loses the nerve. "My dad's having a party at his house on Saturday."

"You don't _actually_ have to—" he begins.

"Oh no," she says. "You're not getting out of this now."

"I'd love to go to the party with you," he tries again.

"That's what I thought," she says with a resolute nod, and he cracks a smile.

He breaks the distance between them first, reaching out to pull her into a hug. Even with her arms folded up between them, she settles against him easily and buries her nose in his neck.

"I hate fighting with you," he says against her hair.

"I know," she says.

He kisses the top of her head before pulling away from her; she lets her hands trail down his chest and takes his hands in hers.

"I gotta go back upstairs," he says at length.

"Alright," she says. "I'll see you at work?" she asks.

He nods, but when he turns to go she tugs him back and kisses him soundly. When they break apart, the look on his face makes it clear that his resolve to leave her there is waning with every second, so she pushes him towards his stoop.

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" he asks.

"Goodnight," she says by way of response.

"Goodnight," he says.

* * *

Friday at work starts off smoothly: she has six constituents on their merry way by lunchtime, and Gareth drops by her office on his lunch break to talk logistics. Cathy's not leaving until the next morning, and Laurel has to have dinner with her father and brother that night anyway, so they make plans to meet up before the party at Laurel's apartment.

Unfortunately for them, by the time Luke interrupts them, they've moved on from scheduling to… less workplace appropriate activities.

"I pay you for this?" Luke asks as he closes Laurel's office door.

"I'm gonna go," Gareth says, already most of the way to the hallway door before she can even tell Luke to get out. She waves goodbye halfheartedly, but much like he'd disentangled himself from her immediately upon hearing the door open, he's gone in a flash.

"Thanks," she deadpans to Luke once the hall door closes.

"I take it the two of you worked things out," Luke says.

"Yeah," Laurel says, turning around so she can focus her attention on the complaint papers spread across her desk. "Did you need something?"

"No," Luke says. "I just noticed he'd been in here awhile."

"We're going to have to have a talk about boundaries," Laurel says, rolling her eyes.

"Don't give me attitude. You're the one necking with your boyfriend at work."

"I'm… on my lunch break," she says, ruffling her own hair absently as she turns around to face him again.

"But seriously," Luke says. "I'm glad everything worked out."

"Oh, now you approve?" Laurel asks.

"I wouldn't go _that_ far," Luke says. "But he clearly likes you more than he likes his job, which isn't something you could say about a lot of the guys around here, so there's that."

"I'll pass on that very high praise," Laurel says.

"No, don't. I want him to be a little scared of me."

"Bye, Luke," she says, waving him away.

As he leaves her office, she mentally adds _door that locks_ to her list of raise demands.

* * *

Dinner at her father's is an informal affair; they eat reheated leftovers from the previous night, when he'd had people of actual note and import over, and sit around the too-big dining room table all doing their individual work.

Luke and her father work, anyway. She mostly taps her fingers against her laptop keyboard absently, unable to will any words onto the screen (it's not even work related in the first place; Cathy has indeed written her a long and effusive email about her four top contenders for graduate universities, and Laurel wants to do the reply justice).

Finally, as it's pushing ten o'clock, she bites the bullet.

"Hey, Dad?" she asks.

"Hmm?" he responds, not even looking up from his laptop.

"Can I bring a date to your party tomorrow?" she asks.

Across the table, Luke caps his pen, sets it gingerly down on his legal pad, and steeples his hands together to pay full attention to the conversation.

"Short notice," her father comments. "Are you sure you'll be able to find one?"

"Yes," she says, which finally draws a fraction of her father's attention. "I'm seeing someone, actually."

"A _boyfriend_ ," her father comments dryly, which does absolutely nothing to help the extreme deja-vu she's feeling for her high school days, when every one of her dates fell under a similar scrutiny. At least her mother's not here, too. "I didn't realize you were in a serious relationship, dear."

"That was by design," Laurel admits.

"Not that serious, then?" he asks. "Maybe you shouldn't be bringing him to family events."

"It is serious," she says. "And you invited half of DC. I wouldn't call it a family event."

"So who is this mystery man that I haven't already invited? Nobody I know?"

"No," Laurel hedges. "You know him."

"Well?"

She tosses a final, frantic glance at Luke, but he just smirks and raises his eyebrows to indicate his amusement at the whole situation, which is absolutely no help at all.

"Gareth Ritter," she says, trying not to make it sound like a question.

"Oh, Laurel," her father says. From his tone, outside observers might think she'd stabbed him directly in the heart instead of just making an unfortunate social connection. "You're not serious."

"I am," she says. "We've been seeing each other since July."

Her father scoffs in response. "Did you know about this?" he asks Luke.

"I was as shocked as you are," Luke says, chin rested contemplatively on his hands.

"And you want to bring him to the party?" her father continues. "The Secretary of Defense is going to be there, Laurel."

"What do you think he's gonna do? Spit on him?" Laurel challenges.

"I'm just saying, it's not really his crowd," he says.

"Yeah, yeah," Laurel says, waving him off. "I know. He's a Republican and we're Democrats. Can we skip this part?"

"It's a consideration, Laurel," he says.

"I've considered it," she says.

"Please don't be so hostile," her father says, and she leans her head backwards to contemplate the ceiling so she doesn't lose her temper. "I'm worried that you're going to end up getting hurt."

"That's such bullshit, Dad," Laurel says, rolling her neck side to side before sitting up straight again. "You're worried people are going to see us together and that it'll be a little embarrassing for you."

"I want you to be happy, Laurel."

"If that's true, can you just do two things for me?" she asks. Her father makes no indication that she should stop so she continues on. "First, can you please, _please_ just assume that I'm capable of making my own life decisions without shooting myself in the foot? Second, let me bring Gareth to the party and muster all the civility you have left in you and don't say anything rude to him. _That_ would make me happy."

There's a long, tense pause in the room. Luke looks back down at his legal pad. Her father just stares her down.

"Fine," her father says at length. "Bring him to the party."

* * *

Thanks to his sister's late departure time on Saturday morning, Gareth can't come over to her apartment until about an hour before they're supposed to leave for the party. So when he arrives, she's admittedly not looking the best she ever has; her makeup's done, at least, but she's wearing a ratty t-shirt over her unfortunately sensible undergarments.

That doesn't stop him from getting handsy with her while she's getting ready, though. She knows the feeling. They haven't had sex since Sunday, and a week is an unprecedented dry spell. But as tempting as his bids at seducing her are, their timetable really doesn't have any wiggle room in it. He manages to get the t-shirt off of her before she dismisses him to the bathroom to get changed so they don't get distracted by each other.

The shoes she's wearing are cute, but they each have three tiny, finicky buckles at the place on her ankle that's hardest for her to reach. She gets the left one on with a little doing, but the right one's even harder to reach with her dominant hand, and she can't quite get the last two buckles done.

Finally, she gives up and flops backwards on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"I thought you were getting dressed," he says as he wanders back into the room.

"I can't get my shoes on," she complains.

"Why don't you put them on after you put on your dress?" he asks.

"Because once I have the dress on I won't be able to reach my feet," she says.

"It's a complicated process, getting you dressed for a party," he says as he approaches her, coming to a halt at her bedside. "Have you considered hiring handmaidens?"

"Why would I hire handmaidens when I have you at my disposal?" she asks, nudging him with her knee.

Although it seems like he's been enjoying the show, he still takes the hint and kneels to fasten her shoe. He makes quick work of the buckles, and his hand lingers on the back of her calf as he refocuses his attention and makes eye contact with her.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi," he says, pushing her calf outwards with a gentle, insistent pressure so he can situate himself between her knees. Against her better judgment, she gives way, and squirms towards the edge of the bed as he leans forward.

He kisses her stomach; all her muscles tighten under his touch, and her hips cant upwards when his hand finds the dip of her waist. He kisses her again, and again, each time a half-inch lower, a steady southward progression.

"Hey," she says, letting her nails bite gently into his scalp as she halts his movement. "We've got somewhere to be in an hour."

"I missed you," he says, head bowed toward her.

"It was three days," she says, and he looks up.

"I still missed you," he says. She sits up at that, jostling him away from her (on his knees in front of her isn't a good place for him to be when they're on a schedule), but her hands stay in his hair.

"What was your plan for if I moved back to Los Angeles and you only got to see me on Saturdays?" she asks.

"Miss you a lot," he says.

"Not a great plan," she says as he leans in to kiss her collarbone. "It's a good thing I'm staying."

"Yeah," he sighs against her skin as she again moves to stop him, this time pushing him back gently by the shoulders.

"Focus," she says, straightening his tie. "We've got to get ready for the party."

* * *

"You're late," Luke comments as he meets them in the foyer of their father's house. They are; party guests are milling around already, and Luke's clearly had a drink.

"I tried to tell her," Gareth says, and Laurel rolls her eyes.

"Where's Dad?"

"With the DOJ guys over by the wet bar," Luke says. "Hey, by the way, did you talk to him about the money yet? Not talking about the job is killing me."

"I'm honestly amazed you've gone this long without letting the cat out of the bag," Laurel says.

"Seriously, did you ask yet?"

"No," she says, scratching her neck. "But it's okay. Go ahead."

"You sure?" Luke asks.

"Yeah," Laurel says. "You can tell him. Or I will. Whatever."

"Great," he says, and then catches sight of someone over Laurel's shoulder. "Huh," he says. "My wife's here."

Laurel glances in that direction; Germaine offers them a tentative smile and wave of the fingers when she catches their eye.

"I better go see what she wants from me," Luke says, and leaves them.

"And they say romance is dead," Laurel comments to Gareth once Luke's gone. She takes his arm as they start to circulate the party.

"You were going to ask your dad for money?" Gareth asks.

"The other half of the documentary budget," Laurel says. "But, I don't know. I didn't feel good about it."

"But you're still going to finish it, right?" he asks.

"Yeah," she says, feeling a little more confident in her statement than she would've five months ago. "I'll figure something out. I always do."

"Good," he says, and she smiles at him.

They've come to the bar and her father is nowhere in sight, but some cursory inquiries as to his location pin him in the living room.

"Stay here and get us drinks," she says, craning her neck to see if she can see her father from this vantage point.

"Why?" Gareth asks.

"I just want to talk to my dad before you do," she says.

"That bad?"

"Don't let him get you alone," she deadpans. "If you see him coming at you, come straight to me. Or my brother. He agreed to help run interference."

"I can't tell if you're being serious," Gareth says.

"Get the drinks," she says, and sets off to find her father.

* * *

When she does find him, he's mercifully free of conversational partners, which spares her the trouble of introductions. He doesn't look impressed with her, though.

"You're late," her father says, giving her an appraising once-over. "And you're wearing orange."

"Only thirty minutes, and it's marigold," Laurel says.

"You always have to be the center of attention, don't you?"

"I don't have to be," Laurel says. "I just prefer it."

"Where's your Republican?" her father asks, and she supposes she should just be glad he's done questioning her fashion choices.

"Fetching drinks," Laurel says. "I have him well-trained."

He makes a soft _harrumph_ ing noise in response.

"Boy," she says. "I am not on your good side today, am I?"

"You're being ornery," he says. "Like you _always_ are. Would any of this have even happened if I hadn't tried to warn you off him in the first place?"

"I don't know," Laurel says. "Maybe you should try reverse psychology on me."

He rolls his eyes, but he also cracks a smile, and his scoff doesn't quite disguise his laugh.

"Please be nice to Gareth," she implores him a final time.

"You are by _far_ my most difficult child," he says.

"I get it from you," she says, and pecks him on the cheek as she goes.

* * *

Laurel gets waylaid in the garden by a second surprise guest to the party: her mother. It's an awful lot of parental interaction for a ten-minute period, and she has to suffer through the orange dress criticism a second time.

She's also caught wind of the rumor that Laurel's brought a Republican chief of staff as her date, but her mother's all passive where her father is aggressive, and it doesn't get commented on as much as Laurel would've thought it might. In fact, her mother seems perfectly amenable to meeting Gareth.

Which is the point in the conversation when Laurel haltingly realizes that she hasn't seen him in, like, fifteen minutes – and it definitely doesn't take that long to get drinks.

She does one lap of the house without successfully locating him, and by the time she's on her second she's really starting to get worried.

"Hey, have you seen Gareth?" she asks as she elbows her way into a circle of senators Luke is talking to.

"Yeah," Luke says. "He was talking to Dad."

Unbelievable, Laurel thinks. "I leave them alone for _five_ seconds," she gripes aloud.

"Looking for your date?" Germaine asks. Laurel nods. "I saw him heading upstairs."

"Thank you," she says, glad that there's at least one level-headed and helpful person in her family.

* * *

She finds him on the third floor, where none of the other party guests have bothered to wander, looking at a hallway bookshelf full of knick-knacks and keepsakes.

"Hey," she says.

In response, he holds up a framed portrait of her as a child, missing all six of her front teeth.

"Shut up," she says.

"You're cute," he laughs.

"I fell off my bike," she says. "It took a year for my top teeth to come in."

"And braces, too," he says, gesturing to a picture of her at Luke's high school graduation. "Tough break."

"Okay," she says, taking the photograph away from him. "Enough embarrassing baby pictures for tonight."

"No, it's nice getting a glimpse into your childhood," he says. "Where's your room?"

"My dad turned it into the Batcave while I was in California," she says. "He's got like twenty computers in there."

"Ah," he says. "Too bad."

"Did he talk to you?" Laurel asks.

"Don't worry about it," Gareth says, too quickly, and she narrows her eyes at him. "Honestly," he continues. "It was fine."

"Fine how?" she asks.

"He was very affable," Gareth says.

"Did he say something rude, but in a friendly tone of voice?" she asks. "That's his move. Confuse his opponents."

"It was all very non-combative," Gareth assures her.

"Come on," she insists. "He said _something_ that's bothering you. Just tell me what it was."

Gareth thinks for a moment, then sighs through his nose. "Fine," he says. "He was very polite to me, but he did sort of imply that the only reason he was willing to put up with me – he didn't say this outright, by the way," he interrupts himself.

"He never does. Tell me."

"He implied that he was fine with me being around right now because I'm temporary."

"What?"

"He said you'd get bored of me eventually," he elaborates.

"Oh," Laurel says, and clears her throat. "Yeah, that sounds like something he'd say."

Gareth doesn't respond, but he does reach out to take her hand, and she lets him lace his fingers through hers and tug her a little closer to him. She remembers all at once that they're not trying to hide their relationship anymore. The cautionary two-foot gap she's grown accustomed to leaving isn't necessary. She rests her other arm on his chest and leans her weight up against him.

"You know that's not true, right?" she says.

"I know," he says. "I know you're not going to get bored of me," he clarifies.

"You think you're temporary?" she asks.

"No," he hastens to say. "But – I don't know. We haven't had a chance to talk, really. And you'll still have to leave eventually."

"But we've got an entire year to figure things out," she says. "And… I'm in, okay? For the long term."

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah," she says, standing up straight and tugging him towards the staircase. "Now, come on. My mom's downstairs and she wants to meet you."

"Your mom's here too?" he asks, although he admirably does not blanch at the information.

"It's a classic Healy family sneak attack," she says. "You'll get used to it."

"Can't we just leave out the back and go home?" he suggests.

"No way," Laurel says. "I wrote Luke's speech for him and it's my first one. We can't leave until it's over."

"No," he agrees, squeezing her hand in his. "We definitely wouldn't want to miss that."


End file.
